I created this thread in order to clarify any confusion that people may have about free software, the GNU licences, and why society cannot be free whenever users accept proprietary software. ITT, I will be using the GNU project's definition of free software. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Proprietary software is designed to make users helpless. Without the liberty to run a program, a user is helpless. Without the right to the code, users can not help themselves whenever the program needs to be changed. The user MUST obtain the permission of the master of the program before the program can be changed to suit the user. This means that the user is no longer autonomous; the user not free to help themselves. Individuals need freedoms 0 and 1 in order to be free.
Proprietary software is designed to divide society. Society advances whenever communities cooperate with each other to further their standing. It is alright if members of society do not want to cooperate with others. It is not alright for a master to divide members of society that do want to cooperate by preventing them the right to share resources (such as information or tools) and preventing them the right to use those resources. Without the liberty to share programs, users cannot cooperate with their community; society is divided from helping each other. Society needs freedoms 2 and 3 in order to be free.
Society should not have to live helpless and divided but this is what happens whenever society accepts proprietary software. If all users had the four freedoms, then the GNU General Public License would be useless; nobody would be subject to helplessness or divided from their communities; there won't be any need to guarantee the four freedoms as everybody would already have the right to practise them. The reality is, people will subjugate other people into helplessness and division through software. Having the power to subjugate users is not a power worth protecting. The GPL guarantees that everyone has the right to live in freedom by removing the power to subjugate any user.
In conclusion, to accept any proprietary program means that you find it acceptable to give up your freedom and give to the master of the software. To accept any proprietary program means that you find it acceptable to trade away your freedom for convenience. You should get rid of all your proprietary programs if you wish to be free.
Didn't know Stallman posted here.
TL;DR: GPL is designed to protect freedom as true freedom is only possible when you have the power to enforce it on the unsers against their will.
[b][i][o][u]EXPERT LICENSERS[/u][/o][/i][/b]
have you read your "the cathedral and the bazaar" today?
You have been caught thinking this is /prog2/
>>3
The GPL is a distribution licence, not a usage licence. So how does somebody get compelled to distribute software against their will?
It's free just as a trojan horse is free.
The big idea is to have uneducated commercial vendors use GPL code, then they get found out, and "Oh boy do I have some great news for you, welcome to the wonderful world of open-source, which now includes your commercial product. gg no re"
I'm not making this up, it's explicitly stated in the LGPL documentation.
It's explicitly stated in the GPL documentation. The LGPL has no such provisions.
Free Software is a moral thing: When someone buys software that they have the right to change and fix (see http://cr.yp.to/softwarelaw.html for details of software users rights) but because their vendor is dishonest and a trickster, they don't have the ability to exercise their rights; Without source code you cannot exercise your rights.
Someone using legal trickery to deny you your rights is being immoral. You can say that you need to kill thousands of greeks in order to make money, but that just demonstrates how your work isn't that valuable to begin with, and doesn't make it right.
>>10
The big idea of GPL:
Call your software "free" so stupid commercial developers will re-use your code in closed-source products. Then Richard's lawyers give you a nice call, "GPL your product or hand over the cash".
Then you badmouth people using the MIT/BSD licenses for being "less free" as they are not viral (which means that you can include BSD-licensed code in a commercial product).
RMS loves to play with words to deceive. For example he tells you to modify the meaning of the acronyms used by your opponents (without specifying that you changed the meaning). http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Most nerds may be sympathetic to many of his goals, but his frequent dick moves such as this example means that he is a major douche.
tl;dr: let's all start calling GPL the "GNAA Prohibitive License".
That may have happened to some naive programmers working professionally for the first time, but since then free software proponents have been careful to emphasize the "free as in speech, not free as in beer," meaning of free software.
Seriously, did you get burned because you failed to read the not-even-fine print? Is that why you hate the GPL so much?
Of course not. I've distributed mit-licensed code and sent simple patches to a few projects using a variety of licenses, and I don't care to have some assholes like RMS or ESR pretend that I'm part of their movement and support their agendas just because I happen to have distributed source code for free.
I may agree with them on many issues, but people who use the GPL without specifying a version rarely realize that their project are pawns at the mercy of the evolving agenda of the FSF.
Many just want to get the code out of there, freak out at the permissiveness of the BDS-style license, and resort to the only other license they know, without taking the time to learn about the issues.
At least FSF isn't evil. They give me the code, which is usually much more than I ask for.
> The big idea of GPL:
> Call your software "free" so stupid commercial developers will re-use your code in closed-source products. Then Richard's lawyers give you a nice call, "GPL your product or hand over the cash".
The big idea of the GPL is to ensure that all licensees have the right to practise four specific liberties. These four liberties are necessary for a user to live in freedom. A user cannot live in freedom if this user is lacking sufficient authority to practise all of them. We call software licensed under the GPL “Free Software” because every licensee to that software is allowed to live in freedom.
There is nothing wrong with integrating GPL'd code into a closed source proprietary computer program. There is nothing wrong with integrating GPL'd code into a free commercial computer program. The problem occurs when someone subjugates a licensee into the trap of proprietary software using the code of a GPL'd program.
Whenever you choose to convey a copy of a GPL'd program, nothing in the GPL obliges you to license your work under the GPL. However, it does require that you grant your licensees the same rights that was granted to you. The easiest way to do this is to license your program under the GPL.
> Then you badmouth people using the MIT/BSD licenses for being "less free" as they are not viral (which means that you can include BSD-licensed code in a commercial product).
I personally would not bad mouth anybody for doing this, though I have experienced others doing it. I do what I can to let them know that they shouldn't do this. You seem to be confused about Free Software; everybody is allowed to use Free Software as part of a commercial product. Software that does not allow usage as part of a commercial product is proprietary software.
> RMS loves to play with words to deceive. For example he tells you to modify the meaning of the acronyms used by your opponents (without specifying that you changed the meaning). http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Ok, so give me a specific example of an acronym that was changed that was intended to deceive.
> Most nerds may be sympathetic to many of his goals, but his frequent dick moves such as this example means that he is a major douche.
I don't understand the meaning of dick move. I don't understand the meaning of major douche.
> people who use the GPL without specifying a version rarely realize that their project are pawns at the mercy of the evolving agenda of the FSF.
How does applying the GPL to a program without a specifying a version become “pawns at the mercy of the evolving agenda of the FSF”?
Did you know that the agenda of the FSF is exactly the same in spirit today as it was when it formed 20 years ago? If you didn't know that, I would question whether you even understand what is the agenda of the FSF.
> Ok, so give me a specific example of an acronym that was changed that was intended to deceive.
Rms asks you to always define DRM as something like "Digital Restrictions Malware" because he think the original meaning is "propaganda". He did the same thing for TCPA.
And in the same page, rms recommends that you call copyright infringement "sharing information with your neighbor". lol double standards.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
Also, just see how you redefine freedom to suit your own needs.
> everybody is allowed to use Free Software as part of a commercial product
And you conveniently forget to mention that linking to a GPL'd library means that you must open-source the whole thing. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
> I don't understand the meaning of dick move. I don't understand the meaning of major douche.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dick+move
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=douche
Enjoy
> How does applying the GPL to a program without a specifying a version become “pawns at the mercy of the evolving agenda of the FSF”?
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> exactly the same in spirit
So what? There's zero guarantee. A huge time-bomb that is unlikely to explode because it didn't for 20 years? How fucking great.
> Rms asks you to always define DRM as something like "Digital Restrictions Malware" because he think the original meaning is "propaganda". He did the same thing for TCPA. And in the same page, rms recommends that you call copyright infringement "sharing information with your neighbor". lol double standards.
RMS explains the reasons why he labels these things in this manner. So why is it intended to mislead? Double standards? If RMS has established two (or more) standards, what are they?
> Also, just see how you redefine freedom to suit your own needs.
Where have I done this?
> And you conveniently forget to mention that linking to a GPL'd library means that you must open-source the whole thing.
Wrong. Open source is irrelevant here. Nothing obliges you to cooperate with a community as required by open source.
> This program [...] or (at your option) any later version.
You have quoted one part of the "How to Apply .." section of the GPL3. Tell me how this section causes this sort of program to come under the control of the FSF.